Anti-Semitic crimes targeting members of the Jewish faith in Germany reached their highest level in almost two decades in 2019, according to new government figures Wednesday.

Police statistics show the number anti-Semitic crimes in Germany rose 13 percent last year to 2,032, the highest level since 2001.

Ninety-three percent of the crimes were attributed to right-wing perpetrators -- part of a general upsurge in which more than 41,000 cases of politically motivated crimes of all types were recorded, a rise of 14.2 percent.

The French government on Wednesday revoked a decree authorizing hospitals to prescribe the controversial drug for Covid-19 patients after France's public health watchdog warned against its use to treat the disease.

The government's decision comes two days afterthe World Health Organization (WHO) said safety concerns had prompted it to suspend use of the drug in a global trial.

Last week, a study published in British medical journal The Lancet found patients randomized to get hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) had increased mortality rates and higher frequency of irregular heartbeats.

HCQ is normally prescribed to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, but US President Donald Trump and others have touted it as a possible treatment for Covid-19.

The drug has been the subject of much debate in France, where "maverick" Professor Didier Raoult claimed in March to have successfully treated Covid-19 patients using a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.

Comment: The only concern the WHO has is ensuring people think there's nothing that can help people fight COVID-19 except a vaccine, and unfortunately France isn't the only country listening to those liars and rejecting hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment:

Italy and Belgium have joined France in​ moving to ​​ban the​ use of hydroxychloroquine​ to treat Covid-19 patients as questions continue to mount over its safety.

On Wednesday, France revoked its decree authorizing the prescription of the anti-malarial drug for the novel coronavirus following a decision from the government's health advisory agency.

Now Belgium's health body has warned against using the drug outside of ongoing registered clinical trials.

Italy's health authorities also concluded that there is too little evidence to support the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 and that the lack of proof means it should be banned outside of clinical trials.

The Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) also cited new clinical evidence on the use of the drug which "indicates an increased risk for adverse reactions with little or no benefit."

"Pending obtaining more solid evidence from the clinical trials that are underway both in Italy and in other countries of the world," the decision was made to suspend the authorization of its use in hospitals and at home, AIFA said.

A new study published in the Lancet medical journal could not confirm a benefit of taking the drug as a treatment against the virus. It found that taking the drug was actually associated with increased risks of in-hospital death for Covid-19 patients.

Britain's pharmaceutical regulator also said Wednesday that a hydroxychloroquine trial by the University of Oxford has been "paused" less than a week after it began due to safety concerns. It said other trials of the anti-malaria drug for the treatment of Covid-19 remain "under close review."

When was the last time a drug trial was paused less than a week after it began because of "safety concerns"?

Starting next Monday the strict quarantine in Moscow will be lifted as the biggest hotspot of the Covid-19 epidemic in Russia eases restrictions. But many rules are here to stay, at least until the end of the year.

Moscow accounts for roughly half of all Covid-19 cases in Russia, but now the outbreak seems to be subsiding, so more quarantine measures will be lifted starting next week. Mayor Sergey Sobyanin on Wednesday outlined his plan to steer the city further out of the lockdown.

Arguably the most welcome change will be the relaxation of the stay-at-home order, under which Muscovites lived for almost two months. People will be allowed to go out for a walk at their leisure starting next Monday.

However they will have to take turns, with residents of different houses assigned different days to reduce crowding. Sobyanin joked that without the schedule everyone would likely rush out at once and the streets would look like May Day demonstrations.

A British morning television show suffered a backlash from viewers after using unfair comparisons to suggest countries with female leaders have done a better job than their male counterparts to suppress coronavirus deaths.

Good Morning Britain (GMB) - an ITV program frequently fronted by Piers Morgan - asked its viewers on Wednesday whether women are better leaders, claiming "few countries" with females at the helm "have high coronavirus death rates."

In an attempt to back up that claim, they produced a graphic with British PM Boris Johnson and US President Donald Trump together on one side with their countries' large Covid-19 death tolls vs. the female leaders of New Zealand, Germany, Denmark, and Taiwan with their relatively low fatalities from the disease.

They suggested that women have the innate ability to show more empathy than men, which has helped them to make the right calls while fighting the outbreak.

"The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government. The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support." — Étienne De La Boétie, The Politics Of Obedience

Don't pity this year's crop of graduates because this COVID-19 pandemic caused them to miss out on the antics of their senior year and the pomp and circumstance of graduation.

Pity them because they have spent their entire lives in a state of emergency.

They were born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks; raised without any expectation of privacy in a technologically-driven, mass surveillance state; educated in schools that teach conformity and compliance; saddled with a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion; made vulnerable by the blowback from a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies; policed by government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment's notice; and forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences.

It's a dismal start to life, isn't it?

Unfortunately, we who should have known better failed to maintain our freedoms or provide our young people with the tools necessary to survive, let alone succeed, in the impersonal jungle that is modern America.

We allowed them to languish in schools which not only look like prisons but function like prisons, as well — where conformity is the rule and freedom is the exception. We made them easy prey for our corporate overlords, while instilling in them the values of a celebrity-obsessed, technology-driven culture devoid of any true spirituality. And we taught them to believe that the pursuit of their own personal happiness trumped all other virtues, including any empathy whatsoever for their fellow human beings

No, we haven't done this generation any favors.

Given the current political climate and nationwide lockdown, things could only get worse.

For those coming of age today (and for the rest of us who are muddling along through this dystopian nightmare), here are a few bits of advice that will hopefully help as we navigate the perils ahead.

Minneapolis police sprayed chemical irritants at demonstrators Tuesday night as marchers protested the death of a black man allegedly at the hands of police.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing the death of a man identified as George Floyd shortly after he was apprehended by Minneapolis police Monday, after disturbing video emerged on social media showing a police officer with his knee on the man's neck as the man repeatedly yells out, "I can't breathe."

Takes the word of Oregon state officials and ignores testimony of 2,000 mostly GOP voters

As the ballot scandal in Oregon continues to garner more and more attention, local and national media outlets are taking notice. And they're rushing to the aid of the state officials while dismissing and belittling the thousands of disenfranchised voters who were denied their right to vote in the primary for they party.

Our original article was flagged by Facebook and Twitter as "misinformation" even though we sourced dozens of people making these initial claims. Oregon officials worked with Facebook and Twitter to scrub the story, and now Politifact has chimed in as well, also taking everything the state officials word as undisputed truth — without interviewing a single victim of this ballot scam.

While coronavirus continues to cause uncertainty about the fall 2020 semester, many college students are suing their schools for failing to issue sufficient tuition refunds--- if any at all.

But one law firm is taking it a step further: Hagens Berman law firm launched aninvestigationinto all 5,300 colleges and universities in the country, representing students and parents seeking financial compensation for colleges being forced to close early in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the firm's website, several of Hagens Berman's class-action lawyers are teaming up with parents and students across the nation who have been forced to continue to pay for school tuition despite nationwide closures of all schools forcing students to finish online.

There is no doubt that the best way to combat the spread of the global pandemic of the new coronavirus is through a strong policy of social isolation and quarantine, aiming to reduce the risks of contagion through physical contact between people. Such biological risk management policies imply, however, certain social costs, such as closing trade and suspending several jobs, which has consequences, such as unemployment and bankruptcy of companies. Therefore, for a country to survive, it is necessary to implement a series of auxiliary measures, such as government assistance to the neediest, price control of basic items, among others. When a state fails to implement such measures, the result is complete social chaos and then the population is put at a crossroad between the virus and misery.

An explosive new video from the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) contradicts past claims from Planned Parenthood that the corporation never participated in the sale of aborted baby body parts but merely donated them and was compensated for expenses. Featuring testimony from Planned Parenthood officials under oath in 2019, as well as documents from those officials' admissions, the video shows these executives and directors admitting to actually selling body parts, which is illegal.

Numerous depositions are featured in the video, including from Tram Nguyen (Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast's Senior Director of Abortion Access), Dr. Dorothy Furgerson (Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte), and Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the former senior director of medical services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, among others. More testimony and documents are available on the CMP website.